Modern food processing trends provide for greater access to macronutrients naturally present in foods. With the growth of consumer demand for high quality food, there is a related growth for improved food processing techniques to extract high-quality macronutrients consistent with consumer beliefs.
For example, it is common for users to require food sources to be organic and composed of ingredients that are non-genetically modified (non-GMO). Another example are consumers seeking to avoid particular food sources, such as consuming a plant-based diet.
In addition to demand for food types being driving by consumer choice, such choices are additionally fueled by consumer intelligence to allergic or inflammatory responses. It is not uncommon for a person to an some adverse reaction to a food source, with severity of reaction differing widely between consumers.
Amongst the macronutrients, protein remains the quintessential macronutrient for the promotion of growth and health maintenance. While protein is readily available and commonly found in many food sources, extraction as a supplement for manufactured food sources can be problematic in seeking specialized solutions.
A common protein supplements from non-plant based sources is whey protein, usable as an example of the concerns of modern protein source manufacturing. The quality of the protein product is directly related to the quality of the original source of protein, thus problems can arise from the quality of the original source. Another problem is whey protein is unavailable to vegan and other non-plant-based consumers.
Another problem is that protein quality and other attendant factors are directly affected by the manufacturing/extraction process. One attendant factor can be the absorption factor of the protein by the user, whether the protein is a quickly-digestible/absorbing protein.
The most common form of plant-based protein is soy protein. While serving several market needs, there exists a need for a wider variety of protein-types and a greater degree of stability in the protein itself. For example, consumers can have allergies or other inflammatory responses from the protein source.
The chickpea is a readily-available plant-based protein source lacking known consumer allergies. Chickpea protein has a long history a large degree of stability in food processing. Based on the dynamics of the chickpea itself, there is limited technology exists chickpea protein extraction. Existing techniques require heavily structured processes, including operations within very narrow ranges and complicated processing steps.
As such, there exists a need for a method and system to efficiently extract high quality protein from chickpeas.